Breakfast is, to me, the most intimate meal of the day, the one that you eat barefoot and in your pajamas, the one that eases the transition from your helpless, sleeping self to the person you are in the daytime and to the outside world. What you eat then says a lot about you -- I have it on authority that Brillat-Savarin meant to write "You are what you eat for breakfast"* but the maxim had to be edited for space.

Jean-Marc had passed the point of no return, but it didn't matter. After two weeks of adjusting to the breakfast, lunch and dinner (Mush a la Ghana), he had no desire to escape. The most basic of foods and good friends proved to be the only real necessities, and what would seem like a disaster from the outside was the most life-affirming epiphany he'd ever experienced: The worst really wasn't that bad. To enjoy life, you don't need fancy nonsense, but you do need to control your time and realize that most things aren't as serious as you make them out to be.

The discovery of a new dish does more for the happiness of mankind than the discovery of a star.

I realize this is a very un-American concept, but it does seem to work. The French way is not about deprivation. Their main dishes are bathed in lush sauces, their desserts are irresistible culinary masterpieces. They make the effort to make sure their food is fresh and flavorful, with the payoff that their satisfaction — and most importantly, their satiation — will come from quality instead of quantity.

In the end, all journeys are spiritual. So go off the main road. Be givers of hospitality and gracious takers of it too. Accept the serendipitous moments of life because, when all is said and done, you may find out that they were not serendipitous at all. And know that faith is as real as bread broken among friends. What you believe will take you far on your journey. If you search carefully, you will find good food all along the way.

It seems to me that our 3 basic needs, for food & security & love, are so mixed & mingled & entwined that we cannot straightly think of one without the other.

During those halcyon years of the sixties the solemn subject of nutrition had not raised its head, and the recipies in this book represent that happy guilt-free era. I have not changed them at all. I leave it up to you to edit them yourself as you go along. When a particular preparation calls for a big dallop of hollandaise sauce, for instance, you might use just a spoonful, or when you are directed to beat 1 cup of heavy cream into a fish mouse, use less. However, you don't want to destroy the beauty of the dish. Far better to make it as directed at first, then eat just a spoonful, so that you will know how it is supposed to taste. Certainly one of the best ways to good health is to follow a well-balanced diet and the motto of the American Institute of Wine and Food:
Moderation
Small helpings
A great variety of food
No snacking
Weight watching and sensible exercise
Above all -HAVE A GOOD TIME

Food is power. We use it to change behavior. Some may call that bribery. We do not apologize.

Many more people could ride out the storm-tossed waves in their economic lives if they had their year's supply of food and clothing and were debt free.

Many today have followed this counsel in reverse. They have at least a year's supply of debt and are food free.

I met Roland Henin on the beach in Narragansett. He was chef af a place called the Dunes Club, a big hotel; he commanded a kitchen the size of a football field with a crew of forty cooks, and he needed someone to cook staff meal.

The staff meal cook is low man in the kitchen hierarchy. You cook meals from scraps for people who work in the kitchen. But the Dunes Club was a high-end kitchen and Henin was a classical French chef, so our scraps might be the butt from a tenderloin, and with that I learned how to make beouf bourguignon. We'd have the legs left over from butchered chickens and with these I'd learned to make coq au vin. I turned lamb scraps into lamb navarin...

Staff meal was about the fundamentals of cooking and how to work with by-products, using scraps to make something tasty, eye-appealing, and satisfying. But the message underlying that was "Can you be passionate about cooking at this level?" Staff meal. Only the staff sees it. If you can make great food for these people, create that habit, have that drive, that sincerity, and keep that with you and take it to another level in the staff meal, then someday you'll be a great chef. Maybe.